"Where Y'all Headed?"

If you live in your car, you're homeless, but if you live on your bike, you're free. What's more, if you travel in your car, you're insulated from the world, but if you're on your bike, the whole world comes on over and says "Hello!"

It seems like every time we stopped, for gas, for food, to stretch our legs, to take a picture, somebody walked over to chat. Americans in general are much more outgoing and willing to approach strangers to strike up a conversation than Canadians, add in a couple of motorcycles and we can quickly become the center of attention.

"Where ya comin from?" "Where y'all headed?" "Nice Bikes." "What kind of bike is that?"

California. Canada. Thanks! Yamaha.

The looks of confusion and incredulity on peoples faces and the reactions we get when we tell them who we are, where we're headed, where we started, are priceless. The best one was the waitress that begged us to take her with us.

I'm Home. 19 Days, 9,000 kilometers, 5,600 miles, one Epic Road Trip.The tires that were new when we left home are almost worn out, the oil changes we got in Arkansas are due again, and it took hours to scrub a continents worth of crud from my beloved steed. Cassandra and I are already talking about a road trip to New England, or maybe the Appalachians. Or maybeee......?

Speed has never killed anyone....

"Speed has never killed anyone. Suddenly becoming stationary, that's what gets you."
Jeremy Clarkson.

13 Days down, 5 days left, (give or take) to get home on schedule, such as we're on a schedule. So far this road trip has consisted of 2 distinct twisty sections separated by a flat bit in between. First there was the western portion, the California coast and the mountain states. Then a flat out high speed run across the prairies, bobbing and weaving to dodge constantly building and dissipating thunderstorms and tornadoes. And now the last sprint, through the Ozarks and into the Appalachians before turning north through the Carolina's, the Virginia's, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York State, before finally crossing the border to home.

The bikes are holding up much better than we are, 13 days of  flat out desert runs interspersed with tight twisty roads and high speed sweepers has taken a lot more out of us than it has from our machines. Our bikes are coated with half a continents worth of road grime, chain lube, and dead bugs, but despite their appearance they still fire up at the push of a button, and I almost feel like I'm holding it back when faced with a winding road.

Late this afternoon, leaning into another curve, the whole reason for this odyssey came into focus.

We were on a long, sweeping right hand corner descending through a thick forest somewhere in central Arkansas. I was about 100 feet behind Ray, taking exactly the same line through the corner, entry point, apex, looking for the exit point. My knees were gripping the tank to let me lean as far off the bike as I could, my right arm was pushing on the bar to let the bike fall into the corner, my left arm relaxed on the opposite end holding it steady. The pavement was in perfect condition, the shadows of overhanging trees flashing by. I hadn't realized how fast we were moving until Ray leaned in just a little more to avoid a small patch of gravel lying on the road. I matched his move and also wound in just a tiny bit more throttle, and suddenly felt a vibration running up my toes as the warning feeler on my foot peg began to scrape the road. It was a perfect moment, the shoulder of the road flashing by seemingly inches below my head while the bike was leaned over as far as it possibly could and still maintain traction. I snuck a quick glance at the speedometer and had a brief moment of confusion as I tried to interpret the number I saw. Had I somehow switched the speedo back to kilometers from miles? There was no way I could possible be going this fast in a corner without the tire losing traction to send me skidding across the road. But it was reading miles, I was going at that impossible speed, and everything became crystal clear, it was one of those perfect moments that some people never experience once in their lifetime. One instant of perfection in the middle of thousands upon thousands of corners over the last 13 days.

At that precise moment, a moth bounced off my partly opened visor, ricocheted off my chin guard, and shot into my partly open mouth. I choked/spat the thing out, it bounced off the chin guard again, and wings beating like crazy, flew back and forth in the eddy of wind behind the visor before coming to rest sitting on my left cheek. It then crawled underneath my sunglasses, across my rapidly blinking left eyeball, and out the top of my sunglasses onto my forehead.

All while I was leaned into that corner moving at what was suddenly a ridiculous speed. So much for my moment of perfection. I slowly backed off the throttle, the bike eased itself upright as we came out of the corner, and I reached up with my left hand to snap the visor wide open at the same time I quickly twisted my head to one side blowing the unwanted passenger off.

And that's why Ray came back down the road a few minutes later to find me standing on the shoulder, helmet off, furiously brushing my teeth and gargling with a bottle of water. he was laughing so hard he was crying even before I told him about the moth.

"Are We Lost?"

On the very first day of our trip when we left the Harley dealership for the hotel I led us there like I had lived in San Jose my whole life. The next morning it took me less than 2 minutes after we left the hotel to get the two of us hopelessly lost. I had carefully researched the route and knew exactly how to get out of town and to the coast, or so I thought. Just to add insult to injury after wandering aimlessly around downtown San Jose for half an hour I faked out Ray and sent him down an off ramp while I carried merrily on down the freeway. It took me several minutes to notice he wasn't lurking in my rear view mirror, then find a place I could call him from, then he got bad directions on how to get to my location, with the final result being that after an hour and a half of riding, we were exactly 6 kilometers from the hotel. In the wrong direction.

This set the tone for the trip so far. While it's not unusual for us to get lost for a time on any given day, I have consistently managed to get us lost every single morning within a few minutes of starting to ride.

A few days ago after we'd spent an hour or so wandering along a series of deteriorating mountain roads we pulled over into a small turnout in the trees. We hadn't seen another vehicle for half an hour, and that one had been a mud covered high lift jeep disappearing up a mountain trail. There had been a couple of mailboxes stationed at the end of what might have been driveways, but those were the only signs of civilization.

As soon as we got off the bikes, Ray looked across at me and asked the inevitable question: "Are we lost?"

Without hesitation, and doing my best to sound as upbeat as I could as I replied "Nope!"

Ray: "Then where are we?"
Me: "Colorado!"
Ray: (rolling his eyes) "Where in Colorado?"
Me: "East of Dolores, west of Denver"
Ray: (heaving a long sigh) "Half the state is east of Dolores and west of Denver. We're lost."
Me: "I think you're overstating the situation. Lost implies more than simply not knowing where we are, we also have to not know how to get to where we want to go."
Ray: "Well, I don't know where we are, or how to get to where we want to go. Do you?"
Me: "How much gas have you got?"
Ray: "About 3/4 of a tank."
Me: "Are you hungry?"
Ray: "I'm starting to understand why you always insist on a big breakfast."
Me: "So we've got gas, we're not hungry, it's a gorgeous day, a fun road, it's still early, what are you worried about?"
Ray: "Yup. We're lost."

He was right. We were lost. So what? It was still a nice day.

Tornadoes!?!? Really?

Four years ago Ray and I did our first Epic Road Trip. We shipped the bikes to my sister in Surrey, flew out, mounted up, and headed down the Pacific Coast Highway. We went south until we ran into wildfires, turned east until we encountered tornadoes, fled north until we hit hit snow, before finally turning back east again for home.

We are currently in our cheesy motel room in Limon Colorado. We hadn't encountered any wildfires, and the weather forecast was severe clear for the next week with only the possibility of some scattered thunderstorms. Until we were coming back from dinner. We had stopped in the corner store across the street from the motel when a bunch of cars and vans pulled in and disgorged a jabbering crowd of excited youngsters.

"Is it always this busy?" I asked the guy behind the counter.

"Storm Chasers." He replied with a shrug. He must have noticed my eyes bug out, so he elaborated with "This is Limon, the western edge of Tornado Alley."

One of the youngsters overheard us and gleefully said "We just saw 2 tornadoes to the south, and there's heavy hail to the west on it's way here in a few minutes."

If we could have fit the bikes through the motel room door........

It took 3 1/2 days of driving as fast as we could to get out of California. In the 2 1/2 days since, we've crossed into Arizona, back to California, Arizona again, Nevada, Utah, and due to having to chuck the plan yet again we find ourselves back in Arizona. Along the way I've fought off rabid donkeys with a magic carrot, eaten Mexican food for dinner 4 nights in a row, and started off every day by getting lost. Seriously, every single day. If we continue at this rate we'll be back in Ottawa in time for labor day. That would cause several problems. I promised Dan I would show up for work at some point and in return he promised I could get skydives at the staff rate. He's held up his side of the bargain, me, not so much. The bikes, which left Ottawa fully serviced are already due for some maintenance, and could be overdue for complete rebuilds by the time we return. As for me, 6 days of driving randomly all over the southwestern US at ridiculous and unsafe speeds is starting to take it's toll upon knees and shoulders that were kinda sketchy before we even left home. Naproxen and extra strength Tylenol for breakfast can only do so much.

We're in Page, home to Antelope Canyon and Horseshoe Bend. We've dodged and fed donkeys, crossed several deserts, crisscrossed a dozen mountain ranges, eaten dinner in the shadow of London Bridge, and this morning we went from shorts and T shirts at breakfast to heavy jackets and sweaters at lunch next to snowbanks, then back to shorts and T shirts again as we descended back into the desert.

Tomorrow morning we head to the Motus dealership in Dolores Colorado so I can throw a leg over a Motus MSTR. It's the boutique bike of boutique bikes, a high end hand assembled machine utilizing all the best components available in the world, built around their own V4 engine that delivers an insane amount of power and torque that rivals the energy produced by an electric motor. Accompanied by a price tag comparable to it's power output. With any luck, I'll try it on for size and it won't fit, any other result does not bear consideration. Quite apart from the ridiculous price tag it is impossible to import it into Canada without first filling out a foot tall pile of paperwork to prove to the Registrar of Imported Vehicles that it complies with all the silly regulations that an entire army of bureaucrats could come up with to interfere with peoples fun.

I'm hoping I hate it. but then, on the other hand......

The Next Time Somebody Want's To Take A Picture Of My Bike....

I'm going to jump on it and disappear as fast as I can.

We had just finished running one of the twistiest paved roads that exists in North America, over an hour and a half of non-stop steep climbing and diving corners, rarely getting out of first gear, and when we did it was to only shift right back down again. The Nacamiento Fergusson Road was the only way out of the dead end that the Pacific Coast Highway south through Big Sur had become after a section had been washed out more than a year ago. It was a lot of fun, nerve wracking as hell with no guardrails and many places where there was no room for oncoming traffic, but fun. We were happy to find a place at the end to get off for a well deserved stretch. The pull out even came with a tank.

A couple minutes after we had stopped a passenger van filled with Japanese tourists pulled in from the opposite direction, and while most of them made a beeline for the tank and started shooting pictures and selfies like crazy, one came over and made hand motions as if asking if she could take a picture of my bike. I decided to go one better, and indicated that she should pose with the bike.

What a moron I am. I should have seen the storm coming. As soon as one had her picture taken, the rest wanted their pictures taken. In ones and twos, then every combination they could think of, they posed with it, on it, beside it, on top of it, in front of it, behind it, and then dragged me in for some more. I'll swear not a single one of  those Japanese tourists had ever seen a Japanese motorcycle.

Ray stood a safe distance back laughing his head off at my predicament as I tried to keep them from clambering all over my beloved machine and playing with everything I had strapped and clamped onto it.

At least he thought it was a safe distance. When I'd finally had enough I pointed to Ray and shouted something about "The Orange Tiger", and the whole process started all over again.

We finally managed to shoo them off the machines and fled. We were still laughing an hour later when we stopped for gas.

Off And Crawlin' Like A Herd Of Turtles

This is going to be EPIC! The motorcycles left Ottawa in a shipping container 3 weeks ago, bound for San Jose California, and now Ray and I have finally caught up with them. Aside from a few minutes of total panic 5 days ago when the service manager at Lanesplitter Harley Davidson phoned to say he was refusing to accept them due to some miscommunication on the part of his boss, the plan has come together as I prayed it would. Except for the batteries. The ignitions had been left turned on at some point on the journey and the batteries were stone dead when we picked up our rides. We were able to bump start mine but Ray's was totally pooched and had to be replaced. Everybody in the dealership had tons of questions about the machines that had come from so far and they were all envious of our cross country ride.

We scored on our hotel reservation, we're next door to a Whole Foods Grocery store that has a Brew Pub on the second floor and a huge selection of gourmet food to go on the ground floor. We've been shopping twice so far. The San Jose Sharks home arena is 2 blocks away and Anthrax and Slayer are playing a concert there tonight. John Mehary is probably going to be ticked at me for passing up on the show but the bikes are in the parking lot and ready to roll, it's been a very long day, and we have a lot of miles to cover tomorrow.

The plan for the first day is to head southwest through Big Basin Redwoods State Park and pick up the Pacific Coast Highway, cruise through Salinas and Monterey, along Big Sur, (where half the car commercials filmed in North America are done) then up over the mountains to our destination in Taft, taking every twisty turny weavy windy road we can along the way. Over the next 2 1/2 weeks we'll wind our way home through southern California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, the Ozarks, the Appalachians, and time permitting, even a bit of New England.

Unless the whole plan blows up in our face like the last time we did this: days of pouring rain and snow, wildfires, tornadoes, road closures, Great Big Cracks In The Earth And God Knows What The Hell Else!!!! In which case we will pull out a different map and pick a different direction and a different adventure, but whatever route we take, this will be EPIC!!!!

"Warning: This Is The Worst Road In Pima County"

The Christmas Boogie is over, a great improvement over last year - nobody died. The weather was mostly cooperative, the people friendly, the beer dirt cheap or free and always cold, and the planes plentiful. At one point they were running 5 Twin Otters to keep us jumping. The biggest problem was finding room to pack but somehow there was always space to squeeze in. Cassandra and I spent a day doing free 4-way training with Thomas Hughes of Arizona Airspeed, and some friends came down from Edmonton for a few days so we had them over for a barbecue. There was even a canopy collision over the landing area at 100 feet that turned out remarkably well when the lady who cut off someone on final had her parachute miraculously re-inflate enough that all she did was break her leg. If you're gonna be dumb, ya better be tough!

And the peasants rejoiced.

We've fled the DZ for a few days of peace and sanity before the Canadian Invasion begins, heading down to Tucson to do some riding. From one of the camping guides I purchased we picked out a little piece of Bureau of Land Management desert on the outskirts of Tucson to park on. There are probably 30 motor homes and trailers parked within a few hundred yards of us, but aside from the occasional sound of a generator we could be in the middle of nowhere. We spent yesterday evening having a campfire and could barely make out the lights in a couple of the other trailers.

This morning we got on the bikes, picked a road, and headed south across the desert. Our goal was Tombstone, or maybe even Bisbee, we got nowhere near either one but we sure did find a lot of fun. The road started out straight, eventually became undulating, and after we had turned off to cut across to Nogales it became downright challenging. Sweeping corners quickly became twisty and technical, and after a brief debate we decided to head down a road that my map said was gravel but started out paved. The scenery was gorgeous, and if it wasn't for all the US Border Patrol pickup trucks we would have had the road all to ourselves. The further along the road we went the worse it got, and the more white pickups we passed on the road or driving slowly cross country. That's when we passed this sign.

The road was already badly deteriorated and strewn with potholes, so we figured it couldn't get much worse and kept going.

It got much worse.

Within a couple of miles we were crawling along at 15-20 MPH, occasionally resorting to the shoulder of the road as it was in better condition than what was left of the paved surface. I stopped to talk to Cassandra and suggest we turn around but she pulled up beside me with a huge grin on her face and declared "This road is Awesome!" Okay then, continue it is. We carried on, weaving back and forth trying to find the best path through the mess until we topped a rise and came to another sign that declared "Primitive Road. Caution. This surface is not regularly maintained. Use at your own risk."

Okay, now if the part that was behind us was was the good part, what the hell was up ahead?

We were debating the wisdom of continuing (Cassandra was all for pressing on, I voted for turning back. In case you haven't figured it out by now I don't rely on The Brunette to be the voice of restraint and reason, this is a new experience for me, nobody has ever accused me of being the voice of reason) when a Border Patrol truck came over the hill ahead and pulled up beside us.

He rolled the window down, surveyed the two sport bikes and asked in a skeptical voice "Are you planning on taking those bikes down this road with them tires?"

"Well, yeah, that was the plan." I replied. "Does it get any worse?"

He looked from us, to the sign reading Primitive Road, and back at us, then said "It gets worse, a lot worse. And watch out for the Mexicans hiding in the hills."

Just then my phone received a text from my service provider reading 'Hey Jet Setter! Welcome to Mexico!"

We turned back.

Maybe we'll go to Tombstone tomorrow.

Sometimes Trailer Trash Can Be Beautiful

8 Weeks, 6,000 km on the motorhome, 2,000 km on the bikes, more State and National Parks and Monuments than I can count, sunrise in Monument Valley, Stars in Death Valley, floods in Perris, a bunch of Americans pleading for sanctuary, some skydiving, massive cities, ghost towns, canyons large and small, and a Valley Of Fire. Hwy 74 to Palm Springs, or the opposite direction to The Pacific Coast Highway, high speed runs, low speed lane splitting (scary as FUCK at first but lots of fun once you get used to it), Canyon Carving, High Speed Runs across the Desert (didn't buy fast motorcycles to hold up traffic), and it's all brought us to Skydive Arizona for the Christmas Boogie. Just in time for a storm with wind so strong it was making the slide on the motorhome move in and out. The DZ is mostly submerged, water and gelatinous quicksand like mud everywhere trapping us in the motorhome, temperatures in the low teens for the next week, and we couldn't be happier. The Charlie Brown Christmas Tree is up and decorated, we have a years worth of movies courtesy of George and Celine, stacks of jump tickets, boxes and bags of cheap booze, party goods from Colorado, and we're spending our second Christmas not shoveling snow. 

Life Is Good.

Wind

Followed By The Rain

Followed By The Sunset

US Election Night 2016

As soon as we crossed the border into the US we stocked up on Beer, food, and US cell phone plans. 

Somewhere around the Mississippi we stocked up on Vodka and Chocolate.

When we got to Colorado we went shopping for "Party Goods" of a type that will still get you thrown in jail in Canada. (I should have stuck to the budget, but I'm a terrible impulse shopper). 

Fortunately we had the foresight to bring all the bags of Salt and Vinegar chips we could carry, I see munchies in our future.

We are currently tucked in (barricaded?) into our motor home in a Lowes parking lot somewhere off I-70 in Colorado watching with morbid fascination as one of the leading democracies in the world implodes in spectacular fashion around us. It could be worse. 

Our elevation is a little below 10,000 ft. We crossed over a 11,400 foot mountain pass to get here. just as we were coming to the peak all the bags of chips had reached their limits and started to explode. It sounded remarkably like gunfire going off inside the RV. 

Nope. it's just election night in the USA. Noisy, crummy, and not enough oxygen.